ABOUT | Little Austria

About Us

PROUD LOUDOUN COUNTY BAKERY START-UP

Little Austria™ was started by two young Austrians on a mission to find authentic apple strudel in the United States. Determined in their pursuit, they decided to take things into their own hands.

Equipped with a rolling pin and a lot of enthusiasm, they started baking. The word got out quickly and the couple needed to buy a whole bakery’s worth of equipment to keep up with the growing demand.

Today, Little Austria is proud to offer an authentically delicious strudel experience, by staying true to the traditional technique of hand-stretching the dough and by using locally sourced, high quality ingredients.

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Media & Press

Read what the media, local & abroad, have to say about Little Austria

SEPTEMBER 7, 2017

Apple Strudel: A favorite thing, for centuries...

Apple strudel has a way of evoking nostalgia.For Helene Gallent, owner of Little Austria, a small Leesburg, Va., company specializing in Austrian sweets, apple strudel is the taste of childhood...

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Kara Elder

Washington Post

DECEMBER 3, 2018

Farmers market favorite Little Austria..

For over a year, Austrian-born Helene Gallent has been selling freshly baked strudels at local farmers markets, working out of shared commercial kitchen ChefScape in Ashburn, Virginia.

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Jeff Clabaugh

Washington's Top News

November 30, 2018

Austrian strudel maker to open first brick-and-mortar..

With the assistance of state funding, a startup Austrian bakery will open its first standalone space in Sterling. Little Austria LLC will create five new jobs and invest more than $371,000 to build its new commercial bakery. The...

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Katishi Maake

Washington Business Journal

NOVEMBER 30, 2018

Little Austria Bakery to expand in Sterling...

Little Austria bakery will invest more than $370,000 to build a new commercial bakery in Sterling, officials announced Friday. The company is expected to receive more than $27,000

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Times-Mirror Staff

Loudoun Times-Mirror

November 28, 2018

Announcement Set Nov. 28 About Investment...

Virginia Secretary of Agriculture and Consumer Services Bettina Ring will be on hand Nov. 28 for an announcement of plans by Little Austria, LLC to make a business investment in Sterling.

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Joseph Dill

The Loudoun Tribune

SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

Die Amerikaner lieben diesen Kärntner...

Helene Gallent aus Kärnten hat in den USA die Firma „Little Austria“ gegründet und verkauft österreichische Desserts. Sogar die Washington Post schwört auf ihren Apfelstrudel.

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Claudia Felsberger

Kleine Zietung

What is Strudel?

LAYERED AUSTRIAN FRUIT / CHEESE PASTRY

A flaky, layered, lightly sweet pastry of fruit or cheese popular in Austria. The word "strudel" comes from the German word "whirlpool" due to it's swirled, layered appearance. Strudel-baking is truly an art that lies in finding the perfect balance between its paper-thin hand-stretched dough and its delicate filling. The dough's ingredients are quite basic (flour, water, oil, vinegar, salt) but, the tricky part is stretching the dough so thin that you can read a newspaper through it.

The most common filling is based on apples. But fillings can pretty much be made with a sheer endless variety of ingredients, such as topfen (sweet, soft quark cheese) cherries, pears, berries, plums, even spinach and more.

Our strudel recipe is also not secret. We would encourage you to try it out! You need some guidance?

VIEW RECIPE & VIDEO